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Hey, Hollywood wouldn't be afraid of Jack Reacher by any chance, would they?

For the uninitiated, Jack Reacher is the name of a crime thriller about a crack homicide investigator on the case of a sniper incident that's arriving in theatres on December 21.

More to the point, it stars Tom Cruise in his first feature outing since his much-publicized break-up with Katie Holmes.

And the reason for any perceived trepidation on Tinseltown's part is the fact that the movie's big premiere will not be taking place anywhere in the vicinity of the usual glitzy H'wood venues but over at the Southside Works Cinema in ... Pittsburgh.

Yep, Pittsburgh.

While it's true that the movie was shot there, many a studio production is shot on location these days but still returns to L.A. for the star-studded red carpet rollout.

So what to account for Paramount Pictures' decision to hold the movie's U.S. premiere in the Steel City?

Could it possibly be that the studio's a little concerned that the film itself (which, we hear, is pretty decent), would be overshadowed by all the fallout from last summer's shocker divorce?

After all, Cruise's return to the big screen follows his much-hyped singing debut in Warner Bros.' poorly-received Rock of Ages, and Paramount would understandably like to see a Cruise return to form, as in last December's smasheroo, the $209 million-grossing Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol.

Perhaps a regional U.S premiere for Jack Reacher (five days after its official world premiere in London), would keep a bunch of those pesky paparazzi out of reach, allowing Cruise and his co-stars Rosamund Pike and Robert Duvall to plug their product unhindered.

Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who also penned The Usual Suspects and Cruise's Valkyrie, the crime drama puts Cruise back into that A Few Good Men mode which has served him well in the past.

As for the future, McQuarrie also contributed to the screenplay for the upcoming Cruise sci-fi actioner All You Need is Kill and has been tapped to both write and direct Cruise in Mission: Impossible 5, so it would be a shame if any residual TomKat fallout would happen to rain down on the Cruise-McQuarrie parade, TMZ-style. Or maybe there's something just plain magical about Pittsburgh in December .

Tom Cruise to debut ‘Jack Reacher’ in Pittsburgh

Hey, Hollywood wouldn't be afraid of Jack Reacher by any chance, would they?

For the uninitiated, Jack Reacher is the name of a crime thriller about a crack homicide investigator on the case of a sniper incident that's arriving in theatres on December 21.

More to the point, it stars Tom Cruise in his first feature outing since his much-publicized break-up with Katie Holmes.

And the reason for any perceived trepidation on Tinseltown's part is the fact that the movie's big premiere will not be taking place anywhere in the vicinity of the usual glitzy H'wood venues but over at the Southside Works Cinema in ... Pittsburgh.

Yep, Pittsburgh.

While it's true that the movie was shot there, many a studio production is shot on location these days but still returns to L.A. for the star-studded red carpet rollout.

So what to account for Paramount Pictures' decision to hold the movie's U.S. premiere in the Steel City?